The
Right To Keep And Bear Arms

by: Kim Weissman
April 30, 2000

[All formatting as in the
original]

Reference links follow the
end of this article

For many years, our federal government has been
gradually eroding many of our most fundamental Constitutional rights,
and it is currently engaged in a concerted effort to totally eliminate
the individual right to keep and bear arms that is
protected by the Second Amendment of our Bill of Rights. The activities
of this administration are so hostile to individual Freedom and to our
Constitutional Liberties, and those activities are so willingly
accepted by the majority of the people of this country, that there is
serious doubt about the continued viability of our nation as a free
representative republic.

The attack
on the right to keep and bear arms is just one aspect of the assault on
our Freedom, but that particular attack involves a campaign of lies,
deceit, and disinformation so extraordinary in its scope and so
pernicious in its intended effect, as to merit special attention. If
public policy is to be pursued by reasoned debate pursuant to
Constitutional principles, rather than by mass hysteria, an
understanding of, and respect for, the fundamental facts of the issue
must be held by all concerned.

There is a
wealth of documentary evidence -- debates in the Constitutional
Convention of 1787, debates in the State Ratification Conventions,
letters and documents written by many members of the founding
generation of Americans, contemporary newspaper commentary, the text of
many of the original constitutions of the States as well as the
provisions of most of the constitutions presently in force in the
States today, and in the treatises of political philosophy widely read
and relied upon by the Founders in creating our government -- that the
Founders intended that the individual citizens of the new United States
would retain their right to keep and bear arms, and retain their right
of personal self defense. That evidence has been added to over the
intervening years by decisions from numerous courts, including the
United States Supreme Court, and by commentary from many learned
jurists and scholars.

Beyond that clear documentary
evidence of the intent of the Founders, there stands the historical
context in which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were drafted,
debated, and ratified. The Revolutionary War for Independence began in
earnest when a rag-tag group of colonial Minute Men met the British
troops on the town green of Lexington, Massachusetts, on the morning of
April 19, 1775. The British were marching to Concord, for the purpose
of arresting the rabble-rousing John Hancock and Samuel Adams, and of
seizing the muskets, gunpowder, and shot that had been accumulated by
the colonists in Concord. Hancock and Adams were warned and readily
eluded capture, but the stores of arms could not be moved.

In
the years leading up to that April morning in 1775, the American
colonists had often confronted the British authorities, and had
protested many of the actions of the British government. To protest
taxes, the colonists pelted British troops with snowballs in Boston
Common; to protest taxation without representation they dressed up as
Indians and threw tea into Boston harbor; to protest the Stamp Act that
infringed on their freedom of speech, they boycotted British paper
goods. But it was only when the British moved to confiscate their
weapons that the colonists actually organized an armed force in
opposition and actually opened fire on the British troops.It
was in defense of their right of self-defense that the American
colonists fired the "shot heard 'round the world".

Twelve years later, it was against that backdrop that the
Founders gathered in Philadelphia to organize a new national
government. At that convention was proposed a Constitution for the new
central government. The purpose of that Constitution was to
unambiguously define the structure, the powers, and the authority of
the new government.

That any government has an
inherent tendency to usurp power and to oppress its citizens was a
truism that the Founders considered beyond dispute, and a danger that
they took numerous steps to guard against in drafting their new
Constitution. Their fundamental premise was that any powers not
specifically granted to that national government by the People in their
Constitution -- the enumerated powers, and powers necessary and proper
for carrying into execution those enumerated powers -- would be beyond
the legitimate authority of that government. Simply put in modern
terms, the States and the People of the new United States said to their
new national government, "If the Constitution doesn't say
that you can, then you cannot."

Nowhere
in that Constitution was the federal government given any authority
whatsoever to disarm law abiding citizens, and thus even without the
protection of the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights, the authority
to disarm law abiding citizens did not then, and does not now, exist.
That absence of enumerated authority alone should settle the issue of
"gun control" with finality.

But then
consider the historical context of the Revolutionary War, the "citizen
soldier", States jealous of their sovereignty, the inherently
oppressive tendency of government, and a People acutely conscious of
the long and costly war fought to secure their Liberty. And the "shot
heard 'round the world" fired in defense of their right of
self-defense. What would the reaction have been to anyone suggesting
that the new national government be given the authority to disarm the
citizenry? Certainly if such a proposal were made, it would have
occasioned, at the very least, extremely heated debate. Such a proposal
and the ensuing debate would have been recorded by someone, somewhere.
It would have been the topic of debate in at least some of the State
ratification conventions. Nobody today claims that such a proposal was
ever made -- it wasn't -- let alone that such a proposal was debated --
it wasn't -- or that the federal government was ever actually granted
such an authority -- it wasn't. Clearly, nowhere in the Constitution is
such authority found, or even hinted at.

But
people today do not claim that such authority was specifically and
intentionally granted. Clearly, it was not. People today make an even
more astonishing claim than that: they claim that such authority simply
exists, even without ever having been proposed, debated, granted, or
ratified!

The delegates to the
Constitutional Convention debated long weeks over the precise
terminology to be used in their new Constitution. Those delegates very
carefully considered the implications of any powers granted to, or
withheld from, the national government, and they argued for days over
the implications, meaning, and effect of specific words and phrases
they used. Yet many people today contend that the federal government
has the authority to disarm the citizenry, and that such a momentous
power exists even without any authority having been specifically
granted by the Constitution, even without such authority ever having
been proposed or debated in the Constitutional Convention, or in any of
the State ratification conventions; that the power to do so simply
exists even without such a suggestion ever having
been made by anyone, anywhere, at any time during the founding and
ratification period. Such an idea is precisely opposite to the very
nature of the limited government of clearly enumerated powers created
by the Founders.

But the Founders went even
further than the limited and enumerated powers contained in the body of
the Constitution itself. At the insistence of many of the States, they
added a Bill of Rights. Many of the States refused to ratify the
proposed federal Constitution without the addition of a Bill of Rights,
and many States submitted proposals of fundamental rights that they
insisted be protected by the Bill of Rights. The purpose of that Bill
of Rights was to specify certain fundamental individual rights that
were considered to be so important to Liberty as to merit special
protection, beyond the protection afforded by the Constitution itself
for all of the retained rights of the People.

The States and the People
wanted to make it absolutely clear that those fundamental rights were
unquestionably beyond the reach of the national government. The
language of the resulting Bill of Rights is absolute and unambiguous: "Congress
shall make no law…"; "…shall
not be infringed"; "The right of the People to be secure…shall
not be violated"; "… nor shall private
property be taken…"; "…the accused shall enjoy the
right…"; and the final two imperatives: "The
enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not
be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the People.";
and "The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved
to the States respectively, or to the People." The framers of
the Constitution did not say "should not", or "may not", or "might
not". They used the clear, mandatory, commanding language "SHALL
NOT".

The Bill of Rights was designed
to protect the individual rights of the citizens against government
intrusion. It was not designed
to protect the rights of government -- such a contention is absurd. Yet
that is precisely the absurdity upon which rests the argument of those
seeking to disarm law abiding citizens. The Second Amendment, many
people today claim, protects only the right of the federal and State
governments to keep and bear arms, and only within the context of
police forces and State National Guards. Protects against whom?

Does the First Amendment
protect the right of the government to Freedom of
speech and of the press? The right of the government
to Freedom of religion? The right of the government
to peaceably assemble…to do what…to petition itself
for redress of grievances?

Does the Fourth Amendment
protect the right of the government to be secure in
their persons (what is the government's "person", anyway?), houses, and
papers, against unreasonable searches and seizures? By whom?

Does the Fifth Amendment
protect the government against double jeopardy? The
right of the government against self incrimination?
The right of the government not to be deprived of
its life or liberty (what is the government's "life" and "liberty")
without due process? The right of the government to
just compensation for property taken for public use?

Does the Sixth Amendment
protect the right of the government to a speedy
trial? The right of the government to confront the
witnesses against him ("him" is the word used, not "it")? The right of
the government to counsel?

Does the Eighth Amendment
protect the government from cruel and unusual
punishment?

And when the Tenth Amendment
protects the rights of the States, it specifically uses the word
"States". Twice. It clearly distinguishes "States" from "People" as two
separate entities. It is thus obvious that when the Founders meant
"States", they were fully capable of saying so. In the Second Amendment
they did not say "States", they specifically said
"the right of the People…shall not be infringed". The People.

The idea that the Bill of
Rights protects governments and not people is demonstrably absurd and
irrational, as is clear from the above suggestions. Yet despite all
that, are we supposed to believe that the Second Amendment, alone among
the Bill of Rights, protects only the government, and not the People?
Are we supposed to believe, although the Second Amendment uses the word
"People", that among all the other Bill of Rights provisions that also
use the word "People", the Second Amendment alone really doesn't mean
"People", it means "States", or federal government, only? Yes, that is
precisely what we are asked and expected to believe.

The officials of our government
know that they do not posses the legitimate authority to disarm law
abiding citizens. So with the aid of a duplicitous national media, this
administration seeks to incite mob hysteria to achieve its agenda of
eliminating the individual right to keep and bear arms. Our government
can enact any laws it chooses, no matter how illegitimate, and it
unquestionably possesses the raw power to disarm the citizens of this
country pursuant to those laws, if it so chooses. What is there to stop
government officials who have repeatedly shown their utter contempt for
the Constitution? But the exercise of such power would be the lawless
act of a lawless government, without even the slightest pretense to
Constitutional legitimacy. It would be a tyranny of force, a
dictatorial usurpation of power aided and abetted by mass public
hysteria. Such an act of lawlessness would be the final nail in the
coffin of our Constitution, and the final abandonment by our government
of the Rule of Law. And it will toll the final death-knell of our
Freedom.

As a nation, we are already
dangerously far along the road towards accepting the unbridled rule of
force by our government. We are increasingly governed by policies
established, not by laws duly enacted by elected legislators, but by
judicial edicts arising from lawsuits, and by mandates from unelected
and unaccountable regulatory bureaucrats. We watch our government move
from one lawful industry to another, ignoring the legislative process
and imposing its will by regulation and the threat of lawsuits, leaving
its victims only the choice between surrender and bankruptcy.

First it was tobacco, now
firearms, next perhaps alcohol, sport utility vehicles and maybe all
automobiles, pharmaceuticals, fast foods…the list is literally endless.
And that list grows longer as those bureaucrats learn that they can get
away with imposing their will and ideological agenda through force,
intimidation, and the threat of lawsuits. And as they do so, our
democratic institutions, and the will of the People of the country,
become increasingly superfluous, except to the extent that the people
are needed as props to supply the necessary mob hysteria. We watch our
government demonizing people, groups, entire industries, for the
purpose of whipping up a mob frenzy to validate its attacks. And we
remain silent.

What will
be the next target of vindictive federal potentates? We don't know, we
only pray that it will be someone else and not us, and that they will
leave us alone for a little while longer. That is no way for a free
People to live. That is how slaves under totalitarian dictatorships
live. From where does a president, or any government bureaucrat, get
the authority to decide that a legal product, wanted and used by
millions of Americans, should no longer exist? One firearms
manufacturer (Colt) has already been driven out of the business of
selling its products to private citizens entirely; another (Smith
& Wesson) has been bludgeoned into an agreement that will
probably lead to the same result. From where does any government
bureaucrat get the authority to destroy lawful companies simply because
that bureaucrat doesn't like the product being sold? In a free society,
governed by a Constitution and the Rule of Law, government bureaucrats
do not have that authority. But we have allowed them to seize the power
to do exactly that.

Whether we govern ourselves by
the Rule of Law, the Constitution, and reasoned debate; or allow
ourselves to succumb to mass hysteria and the tyrannical rule of
unbridled government force, is still up to us. Although dangerously
weakened, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights have not yet been
repealed. We still have the right to vote tyrannical government
officials out of office, and although our votes are increasingly
diluted by electoral fraud, and by the votes of non-citizens and
felons, that right has not yet been taken from us. We still have, for
now, the right to speak out against those who trample our rights; we
still have, for now, the right to contribute money and support to those
legislators and would-be legislators who understand and respect the
Constitutional restraints on their authority. But as government power
and government lawlessness grows, and as our Liberties shrink in
consequence, our power to control our government is rapidly
disappearing. By our silence, we are selling ourselves and our children
into bondage.

From where do the gun banners
presume to get the legitimate authority to ban the individual right to
keep and bear arms? It is clear that the Second Amendment's reference
to "militia" will not suffice, since the Founders
clearly described the nature of the 18th century
militia; the State constitutions, following the intent of the Second
Amendment, clearly demonstrate that understanding; and the Bill of
Rights was designed not to limit the rights protected by the
Constitution, but to further enhance and protect those rights. It is
clear that the "general Welfare" clauses will not
suffice, since both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson clearly
explained that the "general welfare" concept must operate within the
boundaries of the enumerated powers, or else the Constitution itself
means nothing; and disarming citizens was clearly not one of the
enumerated powers. It is clear that the idea of an "evolving,
growing" Constitution will not suffice, since the whole point
of a written Constitution is to serve as an immutable structure of
rules that remains in force until that structure is changed by the
formal amendment process provided for by the Constitution itself. A
Constitution that can be "redefined" by the very institutions it is
intended to restrain is no Constitution at all.

On what Constitutional
foundation do the opponents of the right to keep
and bear arms support their beliefs and their agenda? There is none.
But the totalitarians in our government and among our population care
nothing for the Constitution, which they would like to finally repeal
in its entirety; or about the Rule of Law, which they will bend, twist,
or ignore as it suits their purpose. They care only about power. The
Founders, in their wisdom, gave us the tools to preserve our Freedom
against such unbridled government power, and to do so within
the structure of our Constitution.

A new link will be established
at the home page of this newsletter to combat lies and hysteria with
facts. The information will be expanded from time to time, and will
contain evidence from a host of sources of exactly what the Founders of
our republic intended when they wrote that "A well regulated
Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of
the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The information is here. What
we choose to do with it depends on how much we still value our Freedom.